Los Angeles is violating the constitutional rights of homeless people

CALIFORNIA
L.A.'s homeless law ruled unconstitutional

Appeals court says lack of shelters gives people no choice
Kevin Fagan, Chronicle Staff Writer

A federal appeals court ruled Friday that the city of Los Angeles is violating the constitutional rights of homeless people by arresting them for sleeping or sitting on sidewalks and streets -- a finding that advocates for the homeless say could have a significant effect in San Francisco and elsewhere.

In its 2-1 decision, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that a Los Angeles city law prohibiting sleeping, sitting or lying on public byways constituted "cruel and unusual punishment," because the city has so few shelter beds its street people have nowhere else to stay.

The suit was filed in 2003 by six homeless people who were arrested in Los Angeles' Skid Row, a 50-block sprawl downtown where about 10,000 homeless people bed down every night with tents, cardboard shacks or blankets.

"For many in Skid Row without the resources or luck to obtain shelter, sidewalks are the only place to be," appellate Judge Kim McLane Wardlaw wrote for the majority, which overturned a lower court's finding.

Wardlaw called the Los Angeles ordinance "one of the most restrictive municipal laws regulating public spaces in the United States." She noted that it is enforced 24 hours a day, in contrast to cities whose laws prohibit sleeping or sitting only at certain times.

Contessa Mankiewicz, spokeswoman for the Los Angeles city attorney, said her office hadn't decided whether to appeal the ruling.

Lawyers who advocate for the homeless called the ruling a significant victory that other cities would be wise to heed.

The court's decision applies only to the Los Angeles law, but homeless advocates said it could give them an important precedent to make arguments against similar restrictions elsewhere.

"It's very significant," said Elisa Della-Piana of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights, a San Francisco-based organization. "I see homeless clients every week who are in a similar situation as the plaintiffs in Los Angeles -- people who are cited and criminally punished for sleeping or sitting in public, which hurts their chances of exiting homelessness."

She said San Francisco authorities hand out about 2,000 citations every year to homeless people for violating a state law prohibiting sleeping on streets or sidewalks, and another 2,000 under city park codes for sleeping under trees. Although these laws are structured differently from the Los Angeles ordinance, the court's reasoning should still apply, Della-Piana said.

Tulin Ozdeger, attorney with the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty in Washington, D.C., agreed -- although she pointed out that several similar lawsuits have hit federal courts, and the rulings have split about evenly for and against homeless plaintiffs.

"Hopefully, this will send a message to cities that they should engage in more productive actions than arresting people, like building more housing and doing outreach," Ozdeger said.

David Miree, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom's spokesman for homeless policy, said police here give citations "only as a last resort when we address aggressive panhandling or public safety and health concerns. The court said that Los Angeles gives citations as penalties, and by no means is there a public penalty for being homeless in San Francisco."

He noted, however, that in response to concerns raised by Della-Piana's group and others over the past year, the city is reviewing its citations policy "to see how many are given out, and whether they are being effective."